


your heart is yours for you, there are no more tests of   heart

by elegantidler



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: Gen, Meta, canon character death at the end, ie not fix it but also rejoining with the Force is an occasion for joy not sadness
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-12-29
Updated: 2019-12-30
Packaged: 2021-02-27 08:01:58
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 2
Words: 1,050
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22013803
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/elegantidler/pseuds/elegantidler
Summary: Wherever you are, you are notyour death. You are not your coldbody, your subclavian blood, yourspine upon the body block thatproffers up your organs, yourhumors pooled with gravity — youare abed in natron, my friend, you areforty days not in a metal slot butroused into the mirror world, theeastern fields of light, the fathersun rayed gentle on the rushes ¬ the prosector but the jackalkeeps your stomach & the falconyour intestines and your heartremains your heart is yours for youthere are no more tests of   heart
Comments: 1
Kudos: 1





	1. we were quenched in the dark peace of violent histories

**Author's Note:**

> I wanted to examine Ben and Kylo's lives and my own understanding of the Force in the style of Matthew Stover's Revenge of the Sith novelization  
> Runs from before TFA to the end of TRoS
> 
> Work title and chapter titles are from Elegies by Nam Le [https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poetrymagazine/poems/148377/elegies-5be30d5e74e61]

This is Ben Organa-Solo:

A prince of a system that hasn’t existed in years, the son of war heroes, and heir to the great Skywalker legacy.

He has grown up accompanying his mother in the creation of a new government, listening to his father’s wild tales, and watching his uncle became wise in the ways of the Force. And all the while the Force has grown inside him.

He is destined for greatness, everyone says so.

And with a family like his, how could he not be?

His future is bright and open with endless possibilities.

But who is he _now_?

He has his mother’s ferocity and his father’s crooked smile. He is curious and proud and sometimes he is very lonely.

But more than any of those things, he is a young man strong in the Force. The Force is the most natural thing in the world to him. It has been with him for as long as he can remember. It surrounds him, sits lightly in the spaces between his bones and whispers to him.

Through it he can feel his mother, solid and commanding; he can feel his father, twinkling, Chewbacca’s warmth, Luke’s steady calm. And when he reaches further, he can feel others as well, all mixing together, thrumming with life. And he can feel a needlelike sweetness that creeps in and fills him with strength. And sometimes, when he concentrates, he can feel a distant shimmering brightness, a brightness that scares him and fills him with wonder.

When he’s alone, he sits and he thinks and he wonders about the beings he can feel out there. He wonders what sort of lives they’re living and what sort of futures are expected of them. And sometimes he wonders if anyone out there is reaching back to feel him. 

He has grown up in a time of galactic peace and prosperity. He has none of his parents’ fears of the darkness. How could he? He didn’t live through the empire or the war; they are as distant to him as the seas of Kamino or the cliffs of Utapau. For him, anything he can touch with the Force can’t possibly be bad.

But he sees the looks they sometimes exchange over his head when he does something impressive. And he has hid just outside the door, listening to private conversations too many times. They talk about the galaxy before, they talk about his grandfather and the emperor and the darkness in hushed tones as if they are too afraid to say the names clearly. And now they’re talking about sending him away with Uncle Luke.

He isn’t sure why this makes him so afraid.

He knows his parents love him. He can feel it as surely as he can feel the ground beneath his feet. But there’s a part of him that won’t believe it, a part of him that thinks they want him gone, a part of him that whispers ‘ _they think you have too much of Vader in you’._ A part of him that is afraid he is already lost, a part of him that hates them for it.

That part of him thinks he should become the most powerful Jedi Luke will ever train, more powerful than Luke, more powerful even than his grandfather, just to make them sorry for what they’ve done. 


	2. find a vein, gouge it to the very end

This is Kylo Ren:

Master of the Knights of Ren, Lord Snoke’s apprentice, Darth Vader’s legacy, a man in a mask.

The Force that surrounds him now is heavy and cloying; it is coiled tightly around him, through him, ready to strike. He can no longer feel his mother or father through it, and he no longer reaches out to the shimmering brightness. The thrum of life he used to know is very far away.

 _You can never go back,_ the Force whispers, _they will always hate you for what you’ve done. They will kill you; you must become more powerful than they are, you must defeat them all._

He has chosen the darkness, been consumed by it and he has become more powerful than Luke could have possibly foreseen. He has conquered the galaxy, snuffed out the light and bathed the Force in darkness. The First Order will soon descend on the New Republic and destroy it, destroy everything his mother has worked so hard to build. 

He will do what Darth Vader failed to do.

_Vader was weak, he allowed himself to be led astray by the light, led into failure. Anakin Skywalker died a pathetic death. You must be strong; you must not make his mistakes. You must destroy all the parts of yourself that are tempted to weakness._

He is no longer afraid.

This is what he tells himself again and again when he is alone with nothing but the dark and quiet swirling eddies of the Force to keep him company.

He has nothing to fear, he is powerful, he has severed his history and recreated himself. He is not the failure of his parents’ legacies, he is not a fallen Jedi, he is Kylo Ren, untouchable, unknowable, and he inspires fear and respect wherever he goes.

But he is still not strong enough. And he is still failing, failing his master, failing the dark side.

_You are weak; you are a child hiding behind a mask. You are too weak to turn away from the light. You will fail and you will fail again and you will never be as strong as Darth Vader._

The Force doesn’t lie. It has never lied to him. He _is_ weak and no matter how hard he tries, he cannot shut out the light. And he wants to scream, scream so long and so loud that he drowns out the light and the memory of his mother and his father and the memory of Luke’s face that night, and the fear and the loneliness that claw endlessly at his heart.

But his own voice will never be louder than any of that.

And nothing is turning out the way it was supposed to.

And he is still very afraid and he is still very alone.

And still the light calls to him, quietly, gently, reminding him of the boy he once was.

And still he angrily turns his back.


End file.
